Motivational Quotes

Criticism

A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.

- Lowell, James Russell

Best Quotes about Criticism

It is wrong to be harsh with the New York critics, unless one admits in the same breath that it is a condition of their existence that they should write entertainingly about something which is rarely worth writing about at all.

Chandler, Raymond

Not even the most powerful organs of the press, including Time, Newsweek, and The New York Times, can discover a new artist or certify his work and make it stick. They can only bring you the scores.

Wolfe, Thomas

The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.

Wilde, Oscar

In the arts, the critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising.

Kael, Pauline

Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.

Benjamin, Walter

The biggest critics of my books are people who never read them.

Collins, Jackie

Critics are usually kinder to cheaper movies than to those they perceive to be big Hollywood releases. They cut you a lot more slack if you spend less money, which makes no sense.

Coen, Ethan

Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build it.

Rayburn, Sam

Criticism comes easier than craftsmanship.

Zeuxis

10.

Never retract, never explain, never apologize; get things done and let them howl.

Mcclung, Nellie

11.

A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.

Lowell, James Russell

12.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right. You'll be criticized anyway.

Roosevelt, Eleanor

13.

When everyone is against you, it means you are absolutely wrong -- or you are absolutely right.

Guinon, Albert

14.

Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins.

Native American Proverb

15.

Temperament is the primary requisite for the critic -- a temperament exquisitely susceptible to beauty, and to the various impressions that beauty gives us.

Wilde, Oscar

16.

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.

Hubbard, Elbert

17.

Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world -- though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst -- the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!

Sterne, Laurence

18.

There are two modes of criticism. One which crushes to earth without mercy all the humble buds of Phantasy, all the plants that, though green and fruitful, are also a prey to insects or have suffered by drought. It weeds well the garden, and cannot believe the weed in its native soil may be a pretty, graceful plant. There is another mode which enters into the natural history of every thing that breathes and lives, which believes no impulse to be entirely in vain, which scrutinizes circumstances, motive and object before it condemns, and believes there is a beauty in natural form, if its law and purpose be understood.

Fuller, Margaret

19.

The whole effort of a sincere man is to erect his personal impressions into laws.

Gourmont, Remy De

20.

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.

H. L. Mencken

21.

Now, in reality, the world have paid too great a compliment to critics, and have imagined them to be men of much greater profundity than they really are.

Henry Fielding

22.

For if there is anything to one's praise, it is foolish vanity to be gratified at it, and if it is abuse -- why one is always sure to hear of it from one damned good-natured friend or another!

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

23.

All the world's a stage, and all the clergymen critics.

Nunn, Gregory

24.

After all, one knows one's weak points so well, that it's rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them and invent others.

Edith Wharton

25.

To criticize is to appreciate, to appropriate, to take intellectual possession, to establish in fine a relation with the criticized thing and to make it one's own.

James, Henry

26.

Those who can -- do. Those who can't -- criticize.

27.

Harsh counsels have no effect; they are like hammers which are always repulsed by the anvil.

Helvetius, Claude A.

28.

Critics! Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame.

Burns, Robert

29.

There is an air of last things, a brooding sense of impending annihilation, about so much deconstructive activity, in so many of its guises; it is not merely postmodernist but preapocalyptic.

Lehman, David

30.

I'd rather be hissed at for a good verse, than applauded for a bad one.

Hugo, Victor

31.

If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it, write it in the sand near the water's edge

Hill, Napoleon

32.

There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

33.

You know lots of criticism is written by characters who are very academic and think it is a sign you are worthless if you make jokes or kid or even clown. I wouldn't kid Our Lord if he was on the cross. But I would attempt a joke with him if I ran into him chasing the money changers out of the temple.

Hemingway, Ernest

34.

Critics are already made.

Byron, Lord

35.

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse.

Johnson, Samuel

36.

A drama critic is a person who surprises the playwright by informing him what he meant.

Mizner, Wilson

37.

No degree of dullness can safeguard a work against the determination of critics to find it fascinating.

Harold Rosenberg

38.

Professional critics are incapable of distinguishing and appreciating either diamonds in the rough or gold in bars. They are traders, and in literature know only the coins that are current. Their critical lab has scales and weights, but neither crucible or touchstone.

Joubert, Joseph

39.

Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend's forehead.

Proverb, Chinese

40.

A man must serve his time to every trade save censure -- critics all are ready made.

Byron, Lord

41.

Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.

Updike, John

42.

Those who have free seats at a play hiss first.

Proverb, Chinese

43.

If I care to listen to every criticism, let alone act on them, then this shop may as well be closed for all other businesses. I have learned to do my best, and if the end result is good then I do not care for any criticism, but if the end result is not good, then even the praise of ten angels would not make the difference.

Lincoln, Abraham

44.

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - and most fools do.

Dale Carnegie

45.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

Addison, Joseph

46.

The art of the critic in a nutshell: to coin slogans without betraying ideas. The slogans of an inadequate criticism peddle ideas to fashion.

Benjamin, Walter

47.

No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not work those who work with him. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself.

Tennyson, Lord Alfred

48.

No matter how well you perform there's always somebody of intelligent opinion who thinks it's lousy.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

49.

If I make a move, like raise my eyebrows, some critic says I'm doing Nicholson. What am I supposed to do, cut off my eyebrows?

Slater, Christian

50.

All the critics who could not make their reputations by discovering you are hoping to make them by predicting hopefully your approaching impotence, failure and general drying up of natural juices. Not a one will wish you luck or hope that you will keep on writing unless you have political affiliations in which case these will rally around and speak of you and Homer, Balzac, Zola and Link Steffens.

Hemingway, Ernest